Penn Stater and versatile Major League Baseball reporter Tom Verducci was named the National Sportswriter of the Year yesterday by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association.

Verducci, who’s covered the MLB for Sports Illustrated since 1993, calls games for FOX and provides analysis on MLB Network (good analysis, might I add, unlike many of his colleagues on the station), graduated from Penn State with a journalism degree in 1982. He walked on to the baseball team at Penn State and covered the championship-winning Penn State football team of 1982 for the Daily Collegian.

His father helped Joe Paterno plan his football camps, and Joe cut out Verducci’s first Sports Illustrated story and sent it back to him with a hand-written note. Since his graduation, Verducci has spoken multiple times at Penn State’s campuses.

Prior to Sports Illustrated, Verducci was a reporter and baseball columnist at Newsday for a decade. When he last spoke at University Park, Verducci said he knew he would be a sports journalist as early as 10 years old. His best work at Sports Illustrated is feature writing, the most impressive of which you can read here. Congrats to the Penn Stater on the recognition!

Image: Penn State Flickr